


That night in Bitty's Kitchen

by TuppingLiberty



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Crossover, Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M, Non-oblivious Bitty, cross-fandom, duh - Freeform, post-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7751512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuppingLiberty/pseuds/TuppingLiberty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I write almost exclusively for the Star Wars: Force Awakens community (specifically for Stormpilot) and read almost exclusively in the Check Please! community, and I started thinking about how the twain could meet.</p><p>Basically, Finn is caught in a sticky situation, uses the Force to get himself out of it, and finds himself in the Haus, circa April 2015, before The Kiss(TM). </p><p>Alternately: What would happen if two of my favorite characters sat down to discuss their mutual pining problem over pie and coffee? This. This would happen. Enjoy!</p><p>My advice for if you haven't seen The Force Awakens is: do. My advice for if you haven't read Check Please: do. Neither action is necessary to read this, though it would fill in some stuff for the reader, I think. I don't know, try reading it and see what happens!</p>
            </blockquote>





	That night in Bitty's Kitchen

**Author's Note:**

> This fic uses the headcanon premise that Bitty was aware that Jack was into him, but didn't want to push Jack to come out when he didn't want to/couldn't because of anxiety and/or hockey issues. You can read it here, beautifully written by tumblr user ronanlynchisneversleepingagain: http://ronanlynchisneversleepingagain.tumblr.com/post/148407296488/an-alternative-to-bitty-being-completely-oblivious
> 
> +==== indicates Finn's POV for the following passage.  
> _/\\_ indicates Bitty's POV.

+====

_“That’s not how the Force works!”_

Finn grinned ferally at the oncoming Stormtroopers as he thought of the quip from Han. _That hadn’t quite been true, had it, huh, Solo?_ he thought to himself, counting his breaths out, a strong sense of calm pervading his body. He knew a lot more about the Force now, and one of the first things he’d been taught was how the Force liked to bend the rules, if not outright break them, every once and awhile, just to keep the Universe on its toes. At least, that was how Leia had explained it. He needed one of those rule-bends now. _Like, right now would be great_ , he thought, as the Stormtroopers advanced.

“Traitor!” the Stormtroopers' first-in-command yelled.

“Aren’t you getting tired of that line?” Finn called back. “Look,” he started as he pressed the button to release the purple blade of Mace Windu’s light saber, recovered through Maz Kanata’s connections, “I don’t want to hurt you. I certainly don’t want to kill you. You don’t have to keep fighting for them. You’re innocents-” They kept walking forward, and he twirled the blade to hold them back. “Yeah, that never works, but I’m going to keep trying,” he muttered to himself.

He was heavily outnumbered. If he was captured, he’d be taken to Kylo Ren, and he had to make sure that didn’t happen, not with the secrets in his head. He had to protect the Resistance, he had to protect Leia, he had to protect Poe… So yeah, his back was to the wall, he was outnumbered, and capture meant the death of all he loved. _This would be the perfect time for one of those Force miracles,_ he thought, the calm sticking with him.

His body went through the light saber moves automatically, and now he understood why Leia had had him practicing the maneuvers over and over. The muscle memory let his mind take a different path, ride the waves of the Force, search for the correct answer. A Stormtrooper’s hand closed over his arm, and he couldn’t swing around fast enough to cut the offending limb off.

 _Now or never,_ he screamed at the Force, and then Finn, former Stormtrooper, friend to Rey and Poe, fighter for the Resistance, Savior of D’qar and Hero of Starkiller, winked out of existence.

_/\\_

Bitty told himself he was stress baking because of mid-terms. Definitely mid-terms, and not the gorgeous hockey robot sleeping somewhere above him, graduating in a matter of weeks and presumably leaving his life forever. _Yup. Mid-terms._

He stirred the filling - key lime, he’d wanted something that tasted bright like summer, as winter clung stubbornly onto the Northeast even in these last weeks of April - and checked the oven. Betsy’s pre-heat light had been temperamental recently, and he’d taken to placing a thermometer inside to know the real temperature.

He was crushing graham crackers when he heard a _whoosh_ behind him and a strange wind rushed past him, rustling the curtains. He spun around, then backed up until his back hit the counter as he tried to understand what was happening before him.

There was a man on the floor of his kitchen, and he looked worse for wear. Moreover, he was laying right between Bitty and the kitchen table, where Bitty’s phone was still playing his stress-baking playlist softly. The man was dressed really strangely, and Bitty frowned. _Are the Lax bros having a toga party tonight?_ “Wh-what are you doing here? How did you get in?” Bitty said with the courage he could muster, and stepped closer to the knife block. Jack was upstairs, and he could yell, but Jack was a heavy sleeper. And the rest of the boys were all out or visiting home for the weekend, now that the season was over. Spending a weekend basically alone with Jack was the whole reason he was stress baking.

The man stood, holding out his hands in a peaceful gesture as he looked around Bitty’s kitchen in awe. Bitty relaxed slightly when he saw the man wasn’t that much taller than his 5’7” frame. He was bulkier, though, and carrying some weird mechanical something in his hand. His dusty robes - _why is he wearing robes?_ \- hung around him, tattered, and _is that blood?_ Bitty took another step closer to the knife block.

After a second of looking around, the man rushed to the window, and while he was distracted by looking outside, Bitty quickly grabbed the biggest knife and rushed farther away from the man. Unfortunately, farther away from his phone, too.

“Okay, this is definitely not Abafar. Kriff, I can’t believe it worked! ‘That’s not how the Force works’ indeed.” The man turned toward him with a huge smile on his face, and Bitty would have felt slightly better, because that smile was so warm and welcoming, if he’d understood _a single thing that had come out of the man’s mouth_. The man’s eyes widened as he took in the knife in Bitty’s hands, and he held his own up in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m not going to hurt you, promise. But can you tell me what planet I’m on?”

The smile and the voice told Bitty that the man was a lot younger than he’d originally presumed. “Sir, I don’t know what y’all are talking about, and I’d still like to know how you got in here, but maybe we can just find you a nice place to sleep tonight? There’s a shelter over on Fourth.”

The man backed up. “Do you have a ship? Or a comms unit? Is this planet under the purview of the Reformed Republic?”

“That is…” Bitty cut himself off from saying ‘a bunch of nonsense’ and decided it might be safer to play along, keep the man calm. “Um, this is Earth, I don’t even have a car, my phone is over there, and yes, this is the US so we’re living in a republic.” He giggled a little crazily from the anxiety. “And Jack thought I didn’t pay attention in PoliSci.”

The man’s brows furrowed. “Earth? I haven’t heard of it.” He was looking nervously at the knife Bitty carried. “Listen, I’m really not going to hurt you. I’m with the good guys. All I need is information so I can leave here without alerting the First Order. I’m Light side and I'm with the Resistance.”

“Light side?” Bitty asked, despite himself.

The man looked at him a little like he was stupid, which Bitty truly did not appreciate. “Light side of the Force? Wow, this doesn’t seem like an outer rim planet, it’s so clean. But it must be pretty backwater to not know what the Force is. No offense.”

“None...taken, I think.”

“So the Force is what binds everything in the universe together, right? We’re all connected through the Force.” The man’s tone sounded like he was trying to explain this to a three year old.

“That’s...nice,” Bitty managed.

“And I’m Force-sensitive, which is how I ended up here, in your kitchen. And why I’m able to do this.” The man held up his hand, and Bitty held up his knife in retaliation, then dropped it completely when the box of graham crackers by him started floating in the air and landed in the man’s outstretched hand.

“What the fuck,” Bitty whispered, composure completely lost. The man knelt to get the knife from the ground, then handed it back to Bitty, handle first.

_I’m hallucinating. Gotta be. Apparently I need to have another talk with Shitty about leaving laced baked goods around the Haus without telling anyone what’s in them. Consent is sexy, Shitty._

Strangely, this realization helped Bitty relax. He put the knife back in the block and gestured for the man to sit down. “Where are my manners?” he said, because why shouldn’t he keep his Southern hospitality intact while he was having a hallucination. His mother would be horrified. “Please sit. I could warm up some of yesterday’s pie, but if you can wait forty minutes, this one’ll be ready.”

The man frowned at his change in attitude, but sat, smoothing his fingers over the checkered tablecloth. “So, um, what’s your name?” He sounded hesitant as he attempted the small talk.

“Oh my goodness, my mama would be so mad at me. I’m Bitty. Eric, but everyone calls me Bitty.” Bitty resumed making the graham cracker crust.

“Finn.” The man looked at him as if expecting to see recognition on his face from the revelation of his name.

“Well, Mr. Finn-”

“Just Finn.”

“Well, Finn, you are in for a treat. My pies are to die for.”

Finn was silent at that, staring at the wallpaper.

“Penny for your thoughts, hun.” Bitty kind of like having a hallucination to keep him company in the kitchen. It kept his mind off of the untouchable man sleeping upstairs.

“I’m just wondering why the Force brought me here. I mean, I’m grateful to not be where I was, but why here?”

“Where were you?”

“Fighting off Stormtroopers on Abafar. The First Order was closing in. We’d already lost most of the unit.”

“That sounds like - were you fighting in a war?” Bitty frowned as he pressed the buttered crumble into the pie tin. What was his subconscious trying to tell him with this hallucination?

Finn’s laugh was humorless. “Yeah, a war. If it’s not yet reached Earth, count yourself lucky. The First Order would like to take all that’s nice, and sweet, like this kitchen, and destroy it.”

“We’ve got plenty of wars here on Earth to be worried about. Just as well we don’t have this First Order you’re talking about.” He poured the filling into the tin, and put the whole thing in the oven then set the timer. “Want some coffee?”

“What’s that?”

“Good. I’ll make you a cup the way I like it.”

He brought Finn a cup of coffee, light and sweet, then sat at the kitchen table with him and took a sip.

Finn brought the cup to his nose, then grinned when he smelled it, taking a drink. “We call this ‘caf.’”

“Huh." Bitty savored another taste of the coffee. "So, Finn, how are you going to get back home?”

Finn frowned. “I wish I knew. I need to get back, I need to get the intel I gathered to the Resistance. They’re all in danger.”

Bitty stroked his hand down Finn’s arm in comfort. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

After a quiet moment, Finn nodded. “Maybe if- maybe if I don’t concentrate so hard on it.” He looked up at Bitty. “Got anything to distract me?”

“Oh hun, if you need a distraction, well, I can talk your ear off.” Finn nodded eagerly, and Bitty launched into a detailed description of everyone on the hockey team. Before long, Finn was laughing into his coffee cup.

“This Lardo - I think Jess would like her. She’s always complaining about having to deal with all of the other pilots. And Ransom and Holster remind me of-” Finn’s smile faltered.

“Did you lose someone?” Bitty reached out his hand again, letting it play over Finn’s, trying not to be freaked out at how real his hallucination felt.

“No. No, just, someone I wish I could tell how I feel.”

 _Aha. And now I know why my subconscious served me up this particular hallucination._ “Oh jeez, I know how you feel exactly. Tell me about yours.”

Finn’s eyes took on a faraway quality. “Poe Dameron. Best pilot in the Resistance - scratch that, the galaxy. Too kind for his own good. Brave. Or reckless,” Finn said with a snort.

Bitty looked down at his cup. “Must be hard, being gay in the military. It’s allowed here, now, but it’s not easy. It’s not easy anywhere, really.”

“Gay?”

“Really? You’re my hallucination, and you don’t know what gay means?” Finn arched a brow at him. “Gay. Like men loving men. Men who don’t love women. Et cetera.”

Finn’s face cleared. “Oh, we don’t have a word for that, I guess. Just, you love who you love. I mean, it is a war, if you’re going to die tomorrow, who kriffing cares who you love?”

“That’s sounds nice,” Bitty murmured, then coughed. “I mean, the not caring part. Not the dying part.” He ran a finger around the rim of his coffee cup. “So if no one cares who you love, what’s stopping you from telling Poe how you feel? What if he dies tomorrow? God forbid, of course.”

“Because…” Finn took a contemplative sip of coffee. “Because it’s scary as bantha shit.” He laughed a little, at himself it seemed.

“I hear you. I’ve got… I’ve got a crush of my own. I tried to tell myself for awhile that he was straight - that he loved women - but I really don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s just that he can’t be with me. Can’t be with me and keep doing what he loves.”

Finn frowned. “I’m sorry. Even in the First Order-”

“Even in the evil government or whatever you’re fighting against, being gay is okay? I mean, sure, like you said, you could die tomorrow, but man, what freedom you have already.”

“Can you have a… secret relationship?”

Bitty pretended to play with his phone. “I don’t know if that would be good for him. He’s doing a lot better than last year, but some of the stories Shitty has told me, and stuff I’ve read about his past… I don’t know if he could handle the pressure of that as well.”

“What if you’re selling him short?”

“What if your guy is also scared to make the first move, and you both wait too long?”

They both took sips of coffee in silence. Behind them, the timer dinged, and Bitty went to test the pie, then pull it out of the oven to cool. He leaned against the counter. “If what you feel for Poe is anything like what I feel for Jack, then my advice would be… go for it. Before it’s too late.” _Before Jack graduates and leaves me and Samwell behind forever._

Finn was silent. Then he nodded, determinedly.

Bitty wished he could be as decisive. He turned to cut into the pie, then served up a slice for him and a slice for Finn. “I hope you like it,” he said as he sat back down at the table. He watched Finn fork up a health bite with  enthusiasm, then smiled when Finn granted him one of those wide smiles again.

“Bitty, this is fantastic. This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Literally.”

Bitty laughed. “Well, can I keep you around for my ego?”

Finn looked contemplative again. “I don’t think so. I’m already feeling...it’s hard to describe. Pulled away? Somewhere in here,” and he ran a hand over his chest, “there’s this feeling like I’m being tugged out of this… whatever this is.”

 _Do hallucinations get to decide when they’re over like this?_ Bitty wondered. “Well I’m glad y’all got to stick around for pie, then.”

“Me too. I’ll be dreaming about that for the rest of my life, I bet.”

“You better hurry and eat, I’d hate for you to miss out on any part of it.”

It happened when Finn was forking up his last bite. One second he was there, then, with another _whoosh_ , he’d vanished, his fork clattering to his plate.

+====

After a moment’s disorientation, Finn recognized his surroundings, which was a relief after last time. It wasn’t Abafar, but Yavin IV. More precisely, the Force-sensitive tree on Yavin IV, the one that just happened to be in Poe’s backyard. He stood with support from the tree, letting his body settle after the Force traveling, if that’s what it was called. _If you discover something new in the Force, do you get to name it?_ he wondered.

He’d been here once before, briefly, to visit the tree at Leia’s request, as part of his training. He’d come with Poe, then, and met Kes. So he felt slightly comfortable walking up to the house and knocking on the Damerons’ back door. A confused Kes opened it cautiously, then fell against the doorjamb in shock when he realized who he was looking at.

“Finn? But we thought- You’re not dead.”

“I am definitely not dead.”

“They never found a body, so Poe- but- where were you?” He moved aside and let Finn in.

“Wait, how long have I been gone?” Finn asked in a panic, thinking of the time-sensitive data he’d gathered.

“Almost three months,” Kes whispered, still in shock. “Finn, where _were_ you?”

“Did the Resistance make it out of Abafar? There was a Star Destroyer- Hux and Kylo were there- they were planning an ambush-” Finn collapsed in one of Kes’ kitchen chairs and willed himself to relax. _Three months?_

“They did. It was close, and they lost some people, but they did.”

“Poe? Rey? Leia? Luke?”

“All safe. Or, at least, last I heard.”

Finn heaved a sigh. “Well, I guess Force-travel is not a thing to use lightly, given the consequences. I was only gone for a couple of hours, definitely not three months.”

“Force-travel?” Kes drew his brows together, then cleared his face and shook his head. “You know what, never mind. This sounds like a conversation for you and Luke and Leia.”

“Can I use your comms equipment to contact them?”

“Of course. My comms equipment is your comms equipment.”

\----------------------

Finn was meditating when the transport the Resistance had sent for him landed, and that’s probably why he felt it, like a string between them, his connection to Poe. He knew, without a doubt, that Poe was the one who had piloted the ship. He emerged from the meditation and got up, shaking life back into his limbs, shaking anxiety out, as he walked to the ship.

Poe looked awful, gaunt even, with huge dark circles under his eyes. When he saw Finn, his face didn’t change from it’s grim expression, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Finn, who’d been expecting to be wrapped in one of the pilot’s warm hugs, frowned in disappointment.

“What reason did you give me for why you were rescuing me off the Finalizer?” Poe asked, keeping his distance.

“You-” Finn stumbled, startled. “I told you I thought it was the right thing to do. Poe?” he asked in a small voice.

Some of the suspicion cleared from Poe’s face, and he took a step closer. “Where have you _been_?”

“Would you let me get away with “it’s a long story” so I can skip ahead?”

“Skip ahead to what?”

“This,” Finn murmured, and pulled Poe to him, crushing their mouths together. Poe’s stiff body softened under his, and his arms came around Finn, pulling him closer.

“Tell me I’m not hallucinating,” Poe whispered when they broke the kiss.

“That is surprisingly, not the first time I’ve been referred to as a hallucination today.” He brought his arms up around Poe’s neck, moved his head in for another kiss.

“Everyone thought you were dead, but we couldn’t find a body, so I couldn’t believe it, Finn, I couldn’t believe it.”

Finn cupped Poe’s cheek, wiping away a tear that had leaked out, his heart breaking over the idea that Poe had worked himself to the bone to find Finn, to find some type of closure. “I’m sorry.” Then, because he had to, and because it suddenly didn’t seem as scary as not saying it ever, “Poe, I love you.”

Poe collapsed into him, burying his face in Finn’s neck, and Finn felt a small sob wrack through his body. “I thought I’d lost my chance,” he mumbled into Finn’s skin.

“Nope. I’m right here and we’re going to be okay, alright?”

Poe nodded weakly against him, then drew back, eyes fierce. “Where were you?”

Finn coughed and looked sheepish. “I may have invented something. Using the Force. But also it apparently had unforeseen consequences.”

“Something involving the Force having unforeseen consequences. Well, I’ll be damned,” Poe said, voice dry as dust.

They broke apart a little to walk hand in hand to the house and say goodbye to Kes, who had somehow had the forethought to leave the two of them alone for their little reunion - _thanks Kes_. “So, if I invent something with the Force, do I get to name it? Because I think Force-travel sounds kind of boring, to be honest.”

“You can name it whatever you want as long as you don’t disappear mysteriously for three months again.”

Finn squeezed Poe’s hand. “I won’t.”

_/\\_

The ache in Bitty’s neck was what woke him up. He blinked blearily at the early morning sun coming in the kitchen windows. _Must have fallen asleep_ , he thought. The last thing he remembered was the stranger - Finn - blinking away from the table. “What a weird fucking dream,” he murmured aloud, then jumped in his seat when he realized there were two plates with the remnants of Key lime pie and two coffee cups at the table. So either the whole thing really happened, or he was so into his hallucination - _dream?_ He thought, confused - that he’d drank and eaten two of everything.

He heard the front door close, then saw Jack come in, looking gorgeously sweaty from his morning run. Jack paused at the entrance to the kitchen and frowned in concern. “Bittle, did you sleep here last night?” He crossed to the fridge to grab one of his protein shakes.

“Um, I guess I did,” Bitty admitted, rubbing at his eyes.

“Did you have a guest?” Jack asked, motioning to the two settings as he sat at the table.

“Um. I guess?”

That made Jack frown further. “Eric,” he said softly, and Bitty really, _really_ couldn’t stand it when Jack used his first name like that, it was just not playing fair. “Are you okay?”

“I was just worried about mid-terms,” Bitty murmured. Then, thinking of his conversation with Finn, decided to say something. Maybe not everything he wanted to say, but something. “Jack, you know you’re one of my best friends, right? Like maybe the best?”

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about it in those words, Bittle,” Jack replied, his accent seeming thicker somehow. “But, yeah.”

“Everyone has a right to, um, privacy for their… personal decisions.”

“I agree,” Jack said slowly, clearly unsure where Bitty was going with this.

“I just want you to know that… I’m here for you no matter what, okay?”

There was a beat of silence. “Okay.”

Bitty scrubbed at his eyes again. “I’m going to go take a shower, then hit the library to study.” He stood, gathering the plates and cups and setting them in the sink. He’d take care of the mess from last night later, he told himself.

When he turned, Jack was _right there_ and Bitty wasn’t sure how he’d missed Jack standing and crossing to him. He let out a little surprised, “Oh!” as he came up against Jack’s chest.

One of Jack’s big hands came up to cup his head, brush his thumb against Bitty’s cheek. “I wish you didn’t look so sad, Eric.”

Eric couldn’t breathe, but somehow he managed to say, “I’m not sad, Jack, I’m just-”

He was cut off by Jack’s lips. Because Jacques Laurent Zimmermann was kissing him. Tentatively, slowly, and so tenderly a small whimper escaped Bitty before he could rein it in. Jack broke it off, leaning back, eyes soft on Bitty’s, and then Bitty was circling his arms around Jack’s neck and pulling him back down for another kiss. Jack opened his mouth, and Bitty swept inside, needing to reach further into Jack, needing to ground himself in Jack’s taste, the feel of Jack’s lips. He was pretty sure he was hallucinating again, but this was the kind that would break his heart to wake up to. He really hoped it wasn’t his subconscious playing a cruel joke.

They were both panting when they broke apart. Jack picked Bitty up and sat him on the counter, then rested his forehead against Bitty’s. “Eric,” he whispered, sounding like a benediction on his lips.

Bitty dropped his hands to take Jack’s. “Are you sure you want this?”

Jack’s eyes were unsure on his, and Bitty’s heart stopped. “Is this a thing I can have?”

Bitty’s hand swept through Jack’s hair. “There is certainly some stuff to figure out, sweetheart, but yeah, I think it is. I want to try if you want to.”

Jack had closed his eyes at the endearment, and when he reopened them, they were tender again. “I’d like to try, too.” He wrapped his arms around Bitty, and Bitty did the same, feeling steady again as the morning light streamed in through the window.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. This is my first time writing for Jack and Bitty so if it seems wildly OOC...well, that would probably be why I've never written for them before.
> 
> I'm on tumblr @animalasaysrauer - I post/reblog lots of stuff about Star Wars (where I am one of the leaders of the Competent!Finn brigade), and Check Please, and a lot of other stuff that strikes my fancy. My inbox is always open, so come talk to me!


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